I did my second Turning Point for ABC New England radio today, and chose to talk about the founding the League of Nations in 1920. The League is usually considered to be a failure, because it didn’t prevent the Second World War or even play any significant role after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. But […]
This photograph purportedly shows a squadron of Italian Savoia-Marchetti S.55X flying boats over the Alps on 1 July 1933, during the second and last of the long-distance formation flights led by the Fascist air minister, Italo Balbo (hence ‘balbo‘, briefly in vogue to describe a large formation of aircraft), Rome to Chicago and back. These
After taking some time to recover after the marathon Road to War, I’m taking part in a new series of talks with ABC New England North West‘s Kelly Fuller, along with fellow members of the UNE School of Humanities Nathan Wise (who came up with the concept), Sarah Lawrence and Richard Scully (and more, if
So, after a month of reposts, my celebration of Airminded’s 10th anniversary is nearly over. All that remains is the surprise which I promised, which is (no surprise!) the PhD thesis I submitted way back in 2009, for which I was subsequently awarded my PhD — after all, Airminded began life as a PhD blog.
[Part of a celebration of Airminded’s 10th anniversary; originally posted on 6 September 2014. The start of my investigation into rumours of, well, secret Zeppelin bases in Britain in 1914, which continued here and here, and concluded here. And will eventually be published somewhere.] On ABC New England last week I briefly mentioned rumours of
[Part of a celebration of Airminded’s 10th anniversary; originally posted on 1 March 2014. This was an initial roughing out of an idea for my next big research project, which hasn’t quite happened because I’ve been distracted by other things and haven’t got any funding yet. But I still hope to pursue it in some
[Part of a celebration of Airminded’s 10th anniversary; originally posted on 15 May 2013. I’ve come up with some absolutely terrible titles for Airminded posts, but I like this one very much.] Roland Garros is today mainly known for having given his name to the home of French tennis. But long before then he was
[Part of a celebration of Airminded’s 10th anniversary; originally posted on 31 August 2011. This is one of a number of posts from Airminded’s 7th year making an interesting or original point which probably deserve a wider audience somehow, but which either fall a bit outside my comfort zone or aren’t quite big enough for
[Part of a celebration of Airminded’s 10th anniversary; originally posted on 3 March 2011. Sometimes, blogging takes time. Which reminds me, there are at least two posts I need to finish writing… one day.] A recent comment by J Campbell raised the question of whether Nevil Shute’s 1949 novel No Highway was in fact a
[Part of a celebration of Airminded’s 10th anniversary; originally posted on 25 April 2010. My first substantial, and I think still my most effective, critique of Anzac.] It’s Anzac Day once again. On Anzac Day, Australia remembers some things but forgets others. We remember the sacrifices of the original Anzacs at Gallipoli, but forget that
